Hindi
Iranian band slaps legal notice on Agent Vinod’s music director
MUMBAI: Saif Ali Khan‘s spy thriller Agent Vinod has been embroiled in a legal hassle. An Iranian band has slapped a legal notice on the film’s music director Pritam Chakraborty and its distributors for alleged copyright violation. The film’s song Pungi…has reportedly been lifted from the band’s album titled Soosan Khanoom.
According to the legal notice issued by law firm Vidhii Partners, Barobax Corp had on 16 January 2010 produced and released the album that later became a rage. “On 12 March this year, the band came across the promotions of the movie ‘Agent Vinod‘ on satellite television in Iran. The song Pungi… was being aired. On listening to the song, the band realised that the initial portion of the song is lifted without any change from the title song of their album,” the notice said.
According to the notice, the band is the owner of the copyright of the song ‘Soosan Khanoom‘ which is registered under the Copyright Act in Canada on 30 June last year and, hence, the music of the song cannot be used without the band‘s permission.
Soon after learning about the copyright infringement, the band sent their representative Nargis Kazerooni to India to initiate legal action.
The music band was founded in 2003 by three Iranian nationals – Kashayar Haghgoo, Kevian Haghgoo and Hamid Farouzmand.
Apart from music director Pritam, the notice has also been served to Eros International Media, Illuminati Films and Super Cassettes.
Starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, the film is slated for release on 23 March.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
